A little setback

Well, it seems as though things can never be easy can they?

Winston got more and more uncomfortable as yesterday went on and refused to go down the stairs to go potty a few times in the evening. He was panting and pacing and just wouldn't settle down. I gave him a Rimadyl at 8pm hoping that would help settle him. Finally at 10pm he decided that he needed to go bad enough and went down the stairs. He yelped as he went down them. I checked his knee -- no swelling. He definitely had a limp though. He went potty and came back upstairs. We put the baby gate up across the stairs so he didn't try the stairs without us. I tried to go to sleep, but he stood outside the bedroom door (there's another baby gate) panting and then paced down the hall and back. I ended up giving him some Trammadol. It didn't seem to make a difference.

After a few times of telling him to lie down, I headed back out to the living room. When I sat out there, he circled a few times and then sat down near me but wouldn't settle down to sleep. He got up and paced a few more times and finally around midnight he lay down on his bed. The construction crew overlaying concrete on the highway outside our neighborhood was still sawing the concrete at midnight; there was no way I could sleep in the living room, so I headed back to bed and hoped for the best. I woke up in the morning to find that he'd vomited overnight, and was still panting a bit but wasn't pacing anymore.

We went for a short walk this morning since some movement is better than no movement at all and he did ok once we got going. I wondered if I should call AMVS but decided to give it a little more time and see if he settled down. By 10am he was still panting so I gave him some more Trammadol. That seemed to settle him down and he slept for awhile. We did another very short walk at lunchtime and he did ok and he settled down again afterwards for another nap but would pant whenever he woke up. Time to call AMVS. They asked me to bring him right in so they could check him out.

His temperature is normal and his knee is a little warm but other than that it checks out much like it did last time (no bad changes from the swimming, and no sign of infection) so they think that something about the way he uses it as he swims is irritating the soft tissues (tendons/ligaments) so we're to stop swimming and come back for a re-check in 2-8 weeks depending on how he seems to be doing; bad=2 weeks, good=8 weeks.

Dr. Duerr asked how long we were walking, and I said that we're up to 20 minutes and even did a 25 minute walk on Sunday. He said that we should continue increasing the walking time as much as Winston can tolerate since it doesn't seem to bother him as much as the swimming does. We have a short "sledding hill" in the neighborhood next to us, so as soon as he can walk far enough to get there, we are to try walking up and down that as much as he can tolerate. Also once he's over the soreness we should continue with the sit-stands. He's been so sore getting up and lying down that I haven't done them since last Thursday.

Dr. Duerr also suggested that I call CRCG (the physical therapists) and see if they have any other ideas on what we can do to build the muscle without swimming.

The good news (I think!?) is that he was so stressed out by going to AMVS that he came home and went right to sleep without pacing or panting.